Donald Foster

Donald Foster, a professor of English at Vassar College in New York, is famed for being the first scholar in over a century to discover a "new" poem by Shakespeare, A Funerall Elegye in memory of the late Vertuous Maister William Peeter (he later recanted and re-ascribed the poem to John Ford). Foster uses a mixture of traditional scholarship and computers to perform his "textual analysis". At his best, he is perhaps the closest literary scholarship gets to proving something "by algebra".

High points include:

• the identification of Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors (Klein denied it for six months, then finally came clean)
• confirming David Kaczynski's testimony that the Unabomber manifesto was written by his brother, Ted
• identifying an obscure Beat writer, Tom Hawkins, as the author of the Wanda Tinasky letters previously (almost universally) assumed to be the work of Thomas Pynchon

Foster has garnered controversy for his techniques. In particular, his involvement in the JonBenét Ramsey murder case aroused criticism when it emerged that the scholar had offered his services to both sides, initially lobbying passionately for Patsy Ramsey's innocence, but then going on a few months later, having been spurned by Ramsey's lawyers and hired by the police, to argue dispassionately for the opposite verdict.

Foster is the author of several books including: Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous and Elegy by W.S.: A Study in Attribution.

See also

• Wiki links
  • Wanda Tinasky
  • Primary Colors

• External links
  • Donald Foster Uses high-powered Computer Tests to Search for Shakespeare's Hidden Hand. His Critics Challenge Him on Every Move
  • Donald Foster gets it wrong, again and again